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Once Again, US DoJ Opposes Google Book Search
angry tapir and several other readers passed along the news that the US Department of Justice has come out against the revised agreement to settle copyright lawsuits brought against Google by authors and publishers. This is a major blow to Google's efforts to build a massive digital-books marketplace and library. From the DoJ filing (PDF): "...the [Amended Settlement Agreement] suffers from the same core problem as the original agreement: it is an attempt to use the class action mechanism to implement forward-looking business arrangements that go far beyond the dispute before the Court in this litigation. As a consequence, the ASA purports to grant legal rights that are difficult to square with the core principle of the Copyright Act that copyright owners generally control whether and how to exploit their works during the term of copyright. Those rights, in turn, confer significant and possibly anticompetitive advantages on a single entity — Google."
Huzzah for delaying the inevitable future, fuckwads!
Living With a Nerd
The department continues to believe that a properly structured settlement agreement in this case offers the potential for important societal benefits. The department stated that it is committed to continuing to work with the parties and other stakeholders to help develop solutions through which copyright holders could allow for digital use of their works by Google and others, whether through legislative or market-based activities.
Seemed to me they weren't happy with Google 'ownership' of orphaned works and the fact that it's "opt out" not "opt in" for authors. I guess you could see that as opposition but basically the amended contract failed to satisfy them. That's why they're having a hearing on Feb. 18, 2010.
A deal this big is bound to have lengthy negotiations and investigations as it's truly game changing for everyone involved and the world at large.
My work here is dung.
Opt out is evil. It's evil when spammers do it and it's evil when google does it.
If I create a work and hold the copyright on that work, google has no right to provide copies of that work without my permission, and they cannot say, "you can opt out!". That's backwards according to long established law.
This applies to much of what google does - online books, news stories copied from the organizations which create them, and providing cached versions of web pages.
Copyright law does not magically no longer matter if you add "on the internet" to it.
Larry and Sergei : Guess the commander in chief's not getting any rides on Larry and Sergei's private party jet any time soon!
Obama : My current private jet is actually much better.
Larry and Sergei : We can play Call of Duty on a giant screen.
Obama : I play Afghanistan and Iraq on mine
This is my sig.
The right solution is to fix the brokenness of copyright law, not to write in a special exemption for a particular company.
For starters, we should have an orphan works provision, and the duration of copyright should be cut back down to reasonable levels.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
As subject says. Put somewhere a list of those authors and publishers, then let we the people decide to punish them with the only legal and viable way we have.
I agree with the government's position on this one. What started out as a lawsuit over the scanning of books (to make them searchable, which I consider fair use) has now become an attempt by Google to gain rights they wouldn't have enjoyed without a contract with copyright holders. The idea of a class action lawsuit is to compensate plaintiffs for an alleged wrong, not to grant defendants new rights that could otherwise only be obtained through contract or legislation. In my opinion, the Author's Guild has sold out the class and acted against its best interests. Indeed, the proposed settlement affects even those authors who aren't members of the Author's Guild and does so in a way that is not in their best interests.
If Google wants access to people's copyrighted works beyond what's allowed by the fair use doctrine, let them negotiate with authors or else let them petition the government for sensible laws on orphaned works. The courts are not the way to secure such broad rights as Google has attempted to do through its settlement with the Author's Guild.
"In prison you just have to shut your eyes and take it. Here you have to shut your eyes and give it."
This is Slashdot, IP is "phony" property - unless it's someone violating the GPL, then IP is a good thing.
Why is it that the copyright maximalists always have to resort to LYING to make a point?
Companies engage in this nonsense all the time. All anyone ever asks of them is that they
comply with the license as soon as someone steps up and tells them to. These companies
don't just use "orphan" works, they use works very well knowning that they are actively
maintained and "belong to someone else".
Yet the all the community at large ever asks of them is to come into compliance.
So from the GPL compliance point of view, there's nothing out of the ordinary with what Google's doing.
Even from the point of view of "orphaned" works, the only entity that ever has standing to persue a
GPL enforcement suit is the "actual owner" or author of the work. This is why the GPL asks for
assignment over to them. Otherwise, they may be no one around that can legally complain when a GPL
work is violated.
On the one hand, Google could end up stealing a few pennies from someone that
can't be bothered to keep their work available. On the other hand, Google is
ensuring that the relevant work is kept around.
What do friends and defenders of literature value more: a few pennies or the actual work?
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
> copyright owners generally control whether and how to exploit their works during the term of copyright
Which would be much more reasonable if copyright wasn't permanent (by any reasonable measure) now.
Copyright has been changed. As such, the rules governing it need to adjust to maintain the benefit of having it for society.
--- Mercutio was right.
Somewhere along the way Google forgot one of its own rules. Their subtle yet ever encroaching methods of "helping" the world seem more of an attempt to ensure that google is firmly entrenched in every aspect of our daily lives. IMHO their approach is just wrong. We have lived for thousands of years without street level photos online of our homes and without navagable photos of the insides of public buildings and retail spaces, do we really need them? Many see them as an invasion of privacy.
I'm already concerned about google wanting to control the storage and distribution of medical records, financial records and other areas they seem determined to control.
It took being bitten by the hand that fed them to finally come out againt their own willingness to censor in China, but still show a willingness to cowtow to political and well connected interests.
Their gmail, adsense, and cookie policies are well lets just say less than privacy friendly.
As for books and other media, this should be a opt in system rather than an opt out. If spam was opt out many more would be protesting but its violation is the same. Many argue its to protect media that would be lost in the future, but the proper fix for that is to change laws not skirt around them because your some big coporation.
I just dont see how "do no evil" and a great desire to become big brother can peacefully co-exist.
Why can't these guys introduce some required opt-in copyright for works older than say 25 years? Make the renewal 20 years long and put a US$5 price on it.
Lawrence Lessig has been arguing for something like this for years... it would solve the orphaned works problem, and Disney probably wouldn't care, so they actually might let it happen.
for the vast majority of author's we're not talking about jk rowling: they're obscure. and their works are, frankly, unknown, out of print, forgotten. such that putting the artificial boundary of negotiating with thousands of random yahoos and working out arcane legal arrangements with all of them is completely unwieldy, unworkable, and monetarily not worth the effort
instead, dump all their work in one big database for free, and these authors, because of much greater ease in accessing their works, see an IMPROVEMENT in their accessibility, marketability, and prominence. imagine fucking that
it gets to a point where copyright law is simply gets in the way of technological, social, and cultural progress
there are numerous examples of people wanting to use obscure works, and finding it daunting and impossible to contact anyone to get the rights. the perverse result being that exposure, and therefore money to be made, is denied to these obscure works. copyright law is BLOCKING the long tail and therefore blocking profit making for authors via ancillary means
i'm so sick of copyright law. it needs to be actively destroyed, not simply ignored. luckily, the internet makes copyright's uselessness easily demonstrated. it's easy to circumvent copyright on the internet. meanwhile, enforcing copyright on the internet is a fool's errand. go at it teenagers, bring this ridiculous house of cards from a dead technological era crashing down. copyright is absurd, a farce, it's dead
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The book industry is acting just like the music industry was in the early 2000's. Publishers should try to work with google instead of against them. It's in their (and the public's) best interest.
Substitute "Napster" for "Google" in your statement to see how wrong it is.
Everyone on both sides know the digital transmogrification of the book publishing industry is inevitable. But Google has been the Barbarian at the Tea Party, acting like submission to Mountain View was the best and only route authors and publishers could take. In walks Jobs, looking all natty with his turtleneck and iPad, with whispered promises of doing for the publishing industry with his blend of sleek device and e-commerce what he did for music. Then there's Amazon and Sony, both with vested interests in not killing the golden e-goose of digital book retailing. Google doesn't want this to play out, they're looking to brute-force their way in. Too fuckin' bad, sez me.
As a writer and a reader, I've got no problem with the iTunes-ification of publishing. As a consumer and a citizen, Google scares the hell out of me.
We need only to declare that we are the copyright-holders of our private information.
The DoJ will get stuck trying to decide whether to favor the copyright holders or screw over the privacy advocates (who are the same person), and promptly implode.
I am interested particularly and especially in the part of the bill which concerns my trade. I like that extension of copyright life to the author's life and fifty years afterward. I think that would satisfy any reasonable author, because it would take care of his children. Let the grand-children take care of themselves. That would take care of my daughters, and after that I am not particular. I shall then have long been out of this struggle, independent of it, indifferent to it. It isn't objectionable to me that all the trades and professions in the United States are protected by the bill. I like that. They are all important and worthy, and if we can take care of them under the Copyright law I should like to see it done. I should like to see oyster culture added, and anything else. I am aware that copyright must have a limit, because that is required by the Constitution of the United States, which sets aside the earlier Constitution, which we call the decalogue. The decalogue says you shall not take away from any man his profit. I don't like to be obliged to use the harsh term. What the decalogue really says is, "Thou shalt not steal," but I am trying to use more polite language. The laws of England and America do take it away, do select but one class, the people who create the literature of the land. They always talk handsomely about the literature of the land, always what a fine, great, monumental thing a great literature is, and in the midst of their enthusiasm they turn around and do what they can to discourage it. I know we must have a limit, but forty-two years is too much of a limit. I am quite unable to guess why there should be a limit at all to the possession of the product of a man's labor. There is no limit to real estate. Doctor Hale has suggested that a man might just as well, after discovering a coal-mine and working it forty-two years, have the Government step in and take it away. What is the excuse? It is that the author who produced that book has had the profit of it long enough, and therefore the Government takes a profit which does not belong to it and generously gives it to the 88,000,000 of people. But it doesn't do anything of the kind. It merely takes the author's property, takes his children's bread, and gives the publisher double profit. He goes on publishing the book and as many of his confederates as choose to go into the conspiracy do so, and they rear families in affluence.
These fuckers are not only corrupt, but shamelessly corrupt.
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
This is Google... am I supposed to be mad at them or mad at the government? Couldn't the NSA help them? This is all so much easier when Apple does it first, because then I know I'm supposed to like it.
well named
listen up, anxiety ridden adrenaline filled large rodent:
the AUTHORS make money from prominence they don't currently have in current a system which buries their works in obscurity
understand?
and that IS progress, for consumers and authors. the only people who lose out are traditional distributors
as for google benefitting, yes, but this new understanding can easily be divorced from google. i am saying "do away with copyright", i'm not saying "give all copyright to google". if google is the first to move against traditional distributor model inanity, good for them
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
So what books do you have? Any? Are they being copied by Google for this?
will come from the Google Book Settlement, into which I've "opted in." Call me naive but I don't see how it would benefit me or anyone else to see those books remain in their static state, unavailable save as used books, from which sales I never see a dime. IANA Lawyer but I don't see why Google couldn't break this up into waves, wherein all of us who've opted in can get our checks now and start earning any "royalties" available through search, and leave the disputed rights and claimants for another day.
I'm the queer the atheists sent here to take away your gun!
You DID get paid for your work, correct? therefore why do you want to get paid for someone else's work? I take it that what you'll be fine with is if Google charge you for their copying up front and transfer and pay you a proportion of the revenues they get from your work. You wouldn't want to steal someone else's hard work would you?
And you're pissed off they didn't ask.
Well how do you know they did? Or could? After all I can't see any books with author: Aeros on google book search.
And remember, you can just assert your copyright and ask google not to copy them.
If Google just didn't ask ANYONE, then you'd STILL have to complain to Google about copyright infringement, so what's the problem with doing it now?
How come this got modded down? It's PERFECT. Where's the DoJ on SoundExchange, hmm? WHERE?
Pretty funny that the only reason why you could post that here, and the only reason I was able to read it, and check what was the context by searching in Google, is because, well, the copyright on it expired?
As recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1908 (see Bobbs-Merrill Co. v. Straus) and subsequently codified in the Copyright Act of 1976, 17 U.S.C. 109, "first sale doctrine" specifies the exact means libraries must use to get permission from copyright holders before offering books (or periodicals, journals, etc.) -- specifically, the library must purchase a copy of the book (periodical, journal, etc.).
A library may only offer a book if they have purchased a copy of it and may only offer as many copies of the book as the number of copies they have purchased.
Only those who have actually been published can argue against Google's proposal? But it's OK to argue for Google without being published, right?
IANA Lawyer but I don't see why Google couldn't break this up into waves, wherein all of us who've opted in can get our checks now and start earning any "royalties" available through search, and leave the disputed rights and claimants for another day.
At this point you're a chess piece, and Google intends to use your piece as a pawn...
if its public, its public. nothing goes public and then **snap**, the genie goes back in the bottle. that's absurd
i'm sure john edwards or tiger woods have a few bits of media out there they wish were put in back in the bottle too, but who fucking cares about their embarassment. the idea that we should warp all understanding of freedom of expression and put expensive intrusive toll barriers all over a freely functioning internet just because of the embarassment of some asshole creator who regrets a previous work is pure fucking bullshit
they had to work out agreements with the heirs of sir arthur conan doyle before they did something with the recent sherlock holmes movie. why?! they had to work out agreements with the son of tolkien to proceed on the hobbit movie. why?! its just so much irrational, illegitimate barriers to the free exchange of ideas. no philosophically coherent argument makes sense to me where the child or grandchild or great-grandchild of an author blocks the use of an idea. it simply makes no rational sense to me whatsoever
of course, just as you say, the understanding you outline above IS supported by current law
but it all adds up to me as yet another absurdity that clearly demonstrates the idiocy of IP law, and why the internet should be amplified and sped up by activists in its already inevitable destruction of the stupidity that is IP law. the internet is the rising tide, current intellectual property law is a sand castle. i'm for some of us picking up buckets and speeding up the process: actively undermining the economics that supports the parasitical distributors and nepotisitically embedded heirs that impoverish our culture and dampen the free exchange of ideas. software that seeks out and purposefully puts "protected" works everywhere, so ther'es no way to bottle it up and control it, as if they can do so on the internet anyways
its simply wrong, it hampers the richness and growth of our culture. its a dampening of our shared richness, for the sake of the monetary richness of some nepotistic sense of priveledge and some legislator buying, legal goon employing asshole entrenched and dying distributors. fuck them all. copyright law serves nothing but legal parasites. and so this moronic status quo should be resisted and actively destroyed, for the good of our culture
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The point is when you create art, you have control of its expression as art. You have not only the right to exclusive sale of it but also how your work is expressed. If I own, i.e., a play and I license it, a company that produces it can not legally change the words to the play without my permission--it is my play and I can choose how it is presented.
and what lobbyists are you talking about? that's funny
these are the facts (not propaganda):
if you have an obscure artist, and they are not reexposed to a mass audience, they make no money. fact
if an independent artist reexposes the obscure artist, money can be made via ancillary means off that obscure artist again. fact
however, current law means the independent artist cannot reexpose the obscure artist, because they can't afford the rights... to something no one wants... until they get reexposed. fact, fact, fact. something smell weird to you?
http://www.answers.com/topic/annette-hanshaw
http://www.cbc.ca/money/story/2009/03/17/f-sita-sings-the-blues.html
here's some more "propaganda" for you:
http://www.aintitcool.com/display.cgi?id=18202
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Oh wait. This is Google and not Microsoft?
I can't believe that the government is meddling in the affairs of businesses. What happened to Laissez-faire economics? This is an outrage!
Moral rights do not trump fair use AFAIK.
Copyright doesn't give you the right to limit how others may quote you. Even if an author hates the KKK, the KKK can quote something they wrote in order make their case.
...
Blow the copyright laws into the ditch. It is a flawed and screwy concept. That which is distributed loses any facility to be private in any way. If people really want "rights" over such property they should keep their literary and musical creations to themselves. Art is not supposed to be about money at all. They are turning artistic products into commercial products.
I was unaware of any compensation for authors that Google was proposing - the settlement leaves the door open to some type of compensation in the future as well as leaving the door open to sales of the books by Google or their authorized agents.
But any revenue derived from showing the content of the books online would be Google's compensation for scanning the books and hosting them.
I think that is one of the huge problems a lot of people have with this is that Google is simply appropriating the content and deriving revenue (ads) from it.
Copyright doesn't give you the right to limit how others may quote you.
Tell that to Men at Work: http://www.cbc.ca/arts/music/story/2010/02/04/down-under-lawsuit.html
If you're a zombie and you know it, bite your friend!
Not sure what you are saying. The copyright law grants artists right of expression, the copyright law also grants fair use. I'm arguing that the DOJ is making a valid point. Where did moral rights come from?
What do you suppose is at stake in this case? Isn't storage, retrieval, and searching of the book happening? All of these are way outside of the traditional grant of fair use where someone presumably decides that the particular use does not diminish the value of the original art, or that the particular quote makes sense to quote. I agree fair use and criticism can not be excluded, but they are limited to not diminishing the value of the art. As an example, quotes as short as 300 words form books have been found to not be fair use.
But if I am the copyright holder, I might want my art to not appear in excerpts (say I think it destroys the feeling of the piece). Obviously this argument is stupid for a CS textbook but might make sense for a well crafted novel or a painting where I might not want others to make black and white copies of portions of it and distribute them with information about how to buy the work from me. While I can't stop excerpting for criticism, I should be able to stop it for other uses--it is my art after all.
The point is when you create art, you have control of its expression as art. You have not only the right to exclusive sale of it but also how your work is expressed. If I own, i.e., a play and I license it, a company that produces it can not legally change the words to the play without my permission--it is my play and I can choose how it is presented.
Did I wake up in bizzaro world again?
I can understand you being pissed if I changed your work and passed it off as a faithful representation, but to say that you have absolute control over expression is moronic. That isn't property rights, nor authorship rights, that is 'I don't wanna play with the other kids because they're drawing moustaches on my Mona Lisa'.
The quote is from a statement to Congress, smart guy. There is no copyright on government documents. Work on your reading comprehension.
I see, so if the law isn't the way you want it to be, it is moronic. The thing is that many artists want to share their work there way. If they can not be granted that right, they will not share their work. This means that you can't republish my book after editing it or changing around the prose, even if you first buy a copy of my book for every copy of your book that you distribute. Same thing for songs. There is no automatic license to change and redistribute if you buy a CD for every CD you distribute. One example of this is that my name goes out on that book and your style of my artwork might be absolute rubbish. It isn't just about credit, it is about expression--an essential part of art. Alternately, I might have written a beautiful story with very jerky prose at points to make a political point that I want to make very clear at those points. You can't republish it after smoothing out or removing those points--I can use the work for my purpose and you can't use it for yours.
I'm a video game enthusiast, and have been for some time(28 years old). There are now loads of games that I played a young kid that are now 'abandonware'. So, these games can be downloaded and enjoyed for free. When I hear in the news and read online about Google and 'orphaned' work, I'm reminded of all the abandoware games I've enjoyed playing. Let Google scan the books, maybe they'll archive abandoned games next.
Is there not a Public Trustee kind of thing in the US? The UK and New Zealand have a system where a government department is put in charge of deceased persons' and minors' property when no suitable person can be found.
Could the US not just establish some kind of copyright default office or something where the unclaimed copyright automatically becomes the responsibility of the state, and where original owners can claim it back if they wish? With appropriate plugs for legal gaps, of course.
I see, so if the law isn't the way you want it to be, it is moronic.
On occasion, yes. What is your point?
The thing is that many artists want to share their work there way. If they can not be granted that right, they will not share their work.
There's a solution to that, not sharing their work.
I can use the work for my purpose and you can't use it for yours..
You seem oblivious to the proven exceptions such as for the purpose of parody. Perhaps you are suggesting that the L.H.O.O.Q version of the Mona Lisa would be unlawful under current law?